


The Great Heist

by ohmyfae



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-09 13:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12277368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Jason Todd is eight years old when he sneaks into Haly’s circus and finds a boy sitting at the bottom of a tank, with a long black tail where his legs should be. When he finds out that the boy is miserable, alone, and newly orphaned, he does what any resourceful street kid would do:He busts him out.Where they go from there? Well, he hasn't exactly plannedthatfar.





	1. Chapter 1

Jason Todd was eight when he first met Dick Grayson.

The tent that sat to the side of the circus fortune-telling booth and the fried dough stand was shabby, with a faded sign that was almost unreadable in the haze of late summer. The door was only half open, and the inside looked dark as pitch, with no sign of movement. It was free, though, and since Jason _technically_ snuck over the fence near the restrooms and didn’t have any tickets, he wandered in.

A woman sitting just inside the tent door jerked when Jason ducked inside. “Oh,” she said. “Oh!” She clapped her hands. A string of lights lit up around a circular tank, so wide around that it was bigger than the living room of Jason’s old apartment. He padded up to it, and peered into the green, brackish water. 

There was a shape down at the bottom, on the other side of the tank. Jason walked around it, and the shape started to take form, changing into a perfect statue of a boy a few years older than Jason, sitting on the bottom of the tank. He was shirtless, and instead of legs, he had a glossy black tail that lay still and flat on the scummy floor. The fins waved in the slowly swirling water, and whoever sculpted him had added something that looked like real hair, too, blowing about his eyes.

He blinked, and Jason jumped.

“Is it a robot or something?” he asked the woman at the front. The statue glanced his way and blinked again, twice, one pair of lids moving sideways, the other pair dipping down with long, fanning lashes. 

“He used to be more energetic,” the woman said. Jason squinted in the dark, and the statue pushed off from the edge of the glass, swimming with a slow, fluid grace to the opposite side. “But when his parents died last year, and Haly got voted out, he kind of… well, he’s still something, right?”

“So he’s real?” The woman shrugged, and Jason ran to the boy’s side again. He placed a hand on the grubby glass, and the boy turned to him. He knew _that_ expression well enough. It was the same slow, dull look Jason wore after his mom died, when he had to sit there while the landlady explained that she was sorry, but she couldn’t let him live there anymore. The same look he wore every time adults asked where his parents were, or why he wasn’t in school, or what he was doing hanging out in an air conditioned store, looking too dirty and small and out of place. 

“I lost my parents, too,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

The boy made a motion with his right hand. Jason frowned, shrugging, and the boy rolled his eyes and made the sign again, pinky finger out, rocking back and forth from his chest to Jason. He mouthed the words, and Jason saw strange dark flaps at his neck expand and contract as bubbles rose to the top of the tank. 

_Me, too._

“Oh. Thanks.” Jason looked over to the woman at the edge of the tent, who was sitting by the door so she could read a book. He lowered his voice and inched closer to the glass. “Are you okay?”

The boy shook his head. 

“So you’re stuck in there?”

A shrug. The boy pointed to his tail, looked back at the woman, and pushed off from the glass again. He curled in on himself, and Jason pressed his hands to the glass as the fin slowly broke apart, shaping itself into two very skinny, very _human_ legs. The boy frantically swam for the surface of the water, but the tank walls were too high and slick for him to climb. He clung to them, panting for breath, and his bare feet squeaked as they struggled for purchase.

“Wow,” Jason said, after a moment. “That sucks.”

The boy nodded. “Sure does,” he said, and fell in with a splash that sent the attendant running. 

 

\---

 

Four hours later, Jason came back.

He came with his father’s old tool bag over his shoulder, full of screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, and little picks and strips of metal that had proven infinitely useful over the past three years. Jason had stuffed a spare pair of pants in, too, and a stolen box of granola bars. The bag banged against his back as he slunk behind the empty tents at the edge of the circus, trying to keep silent as he listened for approaching footsteps. 

He hefted a hammer in his hand, heart beating hard in his throat, but there wasn’t anyone guarding the tent where the boy had been. Jason didn’t bother turning the lights on, going straight for the tank instead. 

“Hey,” he said. It was too dark to see anything more than a foot deep, and Jason nearly shrieked when the boy’s face swept into view, just inches from his own. The black flaps on his neck were out, waving like lace, and his mouth was open enough for Jason to see that his teeth were _much_ sharper than his own. 

“I’m gonna get you out,” Jason said. The boy frowned, and made a series of signs. “Look, you might wanna do that weird thing with your tail. Or legs. Or whatever.” He set his tool bag down and dug through it. “Does your tank have like, any screws or something?”

The boy’s hand pressed against the glass, and slowly started to slide along it. Jason followed him, dragging his bag, and stopped at what looked like an unused maintenance door. 

“Perfect,” he said. “Hang on, okay?”

The boy’s worried face disappeared into the dark, and Jason started to work on the bolts in the service door. He’d just gotten one loose, letting out a sharp stream of filthy water, when he heard a light voice overhead. 

“Are you _insane?_ ”

“Don’t think so,” Jason said. He started working on the other bolt. 

“Then why are you…” the voice cut off with a slosh of water, and there was more squeaking and sliding. “Why’re you _doing_ this? Plenty of people get, you know, freaked out, but…”

“Then they’re jerks,” Jason said. “Anyways, I’m an orphan, too, right? People like us—“ He grinned as a long line of water started sluicing down from a crack in the door, and dug his fingers in the gap. “We gotta look out for each other, yeah?”

“I guess.” There was another splash, and the boy was in front of Jason again, pushing at the door even as Jason pinched his fingers raw trying to pull. Together, they wrenched it open about a foot, and then the pressure of the water shot it off its hinges, sending it rattling into the grass. The boy fell onto Jason along with most of the water in the tank, and they landed hard on their sides. The boy tried to get up, but it seemed like he wasn’t the best at using his legs on land. 

Outside, they heard a distant shout. The boy grabbed Jason’s hand, and the two of them got to their feet. “They heard us,” the boy whispered. “Come on, I know the layout.” He turned to the back of the tent and ran for it, stumbling awkwardly on his bare feet. Jason grabbed his sodden tool bag and ran after him. They ducked under the bottom of the tent and out the other side just as they heard someone run in, and the boy took Jason’s hand again. 

“I don’t…” He frowned. “They changed things since Haly left, I guess.”

“Then let’s do it _my_ way,” Jason said, and towed the boy along the empty rows of tents, towards the portable restroom he’d tipped over as a means of escape. Behind them, they heard furious shouting, the ringing of a bell, and, tipping off an alarm in Jason’s mind that he’d honed through years of sneaking through warehouses and stock yards, the baying of dogs.

“I don’t think they’ll hurt me if I say it was a mistake,” the boy said, and Jason tightened his hold on his damp fingers. “I mean, my parents and I were pretty popular.”

“Yeah? What were you doing in _that,_ huh?”

The boy didn’t answer. Jason helped him up over the wall just as bright circles of light danced in his eyes, coming from countless flashlights held by indistinct shadows. Jason scrambled up and dropped to the grass on the other side. 

“They’ll find me,” the boy said, as he staggered after Jason down the side streets heading out of the outskirts of Gotham. “I’ve never been out of the water before, not for long. I don’t—“

“You’ll be fine,” Jason said. They were passing an old manor, one of the fancy old ones with crumbling walls and special houses for their butlers. Jason skidded to a halt at the gate, and hopped from one foot to another. “Actually. I don’t see any lights on in there, do you?”

“There are lights _everywhere,_ ” the boy said.

“Yeah, but not here. I bet whoever owns this place doesn’t even live here most of the time. _I_ bet,” he said, smiling at his new escaped convict, “that whoever it is has a shed, or maybe even a spare _house_ that no one uses. We can lay low there, and when the circus is gone, you can go back to the ocean or whatever.”

“I’ve never been to the ocean,” the boy said. 

“Well, we have a river. You can live with me!” Jason waved him to the gate, which had bars big enough for two skinny kids to pass through. When they were safe in the front drive, Jason took his hand again. “And we can live in my place. Or, well, it’s my dad’s old place. What’s your name, anyway? I’m Jason. Jason Todd.”

The older boy risked a smile. “Dick Grayson. The circus’ll still be looking for me, you know.”

“I bet we can take ‘em.” Jason led them to a side door, which still looked bigger and more ornate than anything he’d seen before. He left Dick to figure out how his spare pair of pants worked while he picked the lock, and he nearly whooped when the door swung open. 

“Don’t think anybody’s home,” Jason whispered. “What kind of rich guy doesn’t have a security system, anyways?” He beckoned Dick inside, and they sighed when they clicked the door shut behind them. 

“What if they come looking?” Dick asked. They were in a long hallway, covered in thick, plush carpet and lined on either side with paintings so fine that Jason’s fingers itched. He could make a fortune with this hallway alone.

“Don’t think they saw us,” Jason said. “And this place is _huge._ I bet we could stay here forever, and whoever lives here wouldn’t even know.”

“Who do you think it is?” asked Dick. “This guy?” He pointed to a painting of a large man in a pinstriped suit. Jason snorted. 

“With that mustache? Gross. What about her? With the pearls? She looks classy. Maybe we can say we’re poor orphans and she’ll take us in, like they do in the movies.”

“Uh, we kind of _are_ orphans, Jason.”

Jason shrugged. “Oh, this guy looks built.” He tried to mimic the pose of the latest painting, a man in a trim black suit that did nothing to hide his powerful frame. “Whaddaya think?”

“Wow. You could be his son,” Dick said, and covered his mouth to hide a laugh. Jason scowled, and he laughed again. “No, wait, that’s perfect! Keep making that face.” Jason glowered at the grim man in the painting, and stalked off down the hall. 

“Let’s find a place to lay low,” he said. He pushed open a door that led into another hall, wider and more open, which branched off in a dozen different directions. “Or maybe a kitchen. When was the last time you ate?”

Dick shrugged. “A few days?”

“I’ve done that,” Jason said, matter-of-fact. “Well, now you’re with me, that ain’t happening again.” 

“I’m pretty sure I’m older than you, you know,” Dick said. He still stumbled a little, but he was doggedly keeping pace with Jason. “Shouldn’t _I_ be looking after _you?_ ”

“Oooh, well, o- _kay,_ Mr. Grayson,” Jason said, giving Dick a mock bow. “Please, help me find where this rich old asshole keeps their food.”

“I believe,” said a light, deeply amused voice from behind them, “I may be able to assist.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jason Todd understood fear. He knew the taste of it in his mouth, like shards of metal under his tongue, knew the tense, tickling electricity that ran through his veins and made his skin break out in uneven patches. He knew how it felt to hide out behind the water heater of his dad’s old place, clutching his tool bag close to his chest while looters tore through the apartment. He knew the cold, dull panic that set in when his dad never came home from his latest job, when his mom’s skin went clammy and her joints locked, when the blood pooled at her back and her breath stopped coming. He knew the ever-present fear of hunger, the thrill of an empty street at his back as he picked locks and smashed windows. 

But something about facing down the tall, smiling man standing before a dim-lit door gave Jason the understanding of a new, unsettling form of terror. 

He could feel his pulse beating fast as a drum, and there was an ache in his chest, the same one he got when he’d found one of his mom’s old hair ties in the bottom of his bag a few months ago. It was just a dumb black tie that his mom used to lose by the handful, but Jason still had to sit down for a solid hour, twisting it back and forth in his fingers. 

The man at the door smiled, and his eyes crinkled at the edges. Jason swallowed hard.

“Don’t call the cops,” he said. He squeezed Dick’s hand, and Dick squeezed back, watching him carefully. “We just… we got turned around.”

“I can imagine,” the man said. He was wearing a fancy dressing robe, the kind people wore in old movies and TV shows, and his white hair was cut short, almost in a military style. Obviously, he had to be the owner of the house. Everything about him screamed old money, right down to his posh British accent and well-tailored clothes. “You must be lost indeed, to accidentally wander through the gate, down the driveway, past a locked door—“

“Look, we’ll go,” Jason said, just as Dick said, “So why haven’t you called anyone already?”

“Should I?” the man asked. Both Jason and Dick stared at each other, and he gave them a funny little bow. “Let us at least introduce ourselves first. I am Alfred Pennyworth, the Wayne family butler and the—“

“ _Butler?_ ” Jason asked. “People still _have_ those?”

“Jason, be polite,” Dick whispered. He wrenched himself out of Jason’s grip, and, with the self-preservation instincts of a moth in an inferno, extended a hand to the butler. “I’m Dick. Richard Grayson. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Pennyworth.”

“Please, call me Alfred.” The man shook Dick’s hand somberly. “And who is your friend?”

“No one,” Jason said. “Dick, we need to go.”

“Well, would No One like something to eat before he goes?” asked _Call me Alfred._ “That _is_ why you’re here?”

Jason opened his mouth to lie, but Dick barreled forward and said, in the chirpiest voice Jason had ever heard, “Would you believe me if I said we were running _away_ from the circus?”

Alfred’s brows rose just a fraction. “Master Richard,” he said, in a solemn voice that held just the hint of a laugh. “That sounds like a story worth telling. If you will follow me?”

He turned, and Dick followed him, bare feet thumping on the carpet. Jason stayed back, hovering in the dark hallway.

“Dick!” he hissed. “ _Dick Grayson!_ ”

Dick popped his head out the door. “Come on, Jay,” he said. “Don’t be such a chicken.”

“I ain’t _afraid!_ ” Jason whispered, running over. Dick took his wrist and dragged him after Alfred’s retreating back. “I’m just careful. This guy could be a serial killer! A freak! He might be waiting to drug us so he can call the cops to lock us up for good.”

“No, he won’t,” Dick said. “Trust me. I know people. I’m _good_ at people. He’s not gonna rat us out.”

“How do you know?” Jason asked. “You grew up in a fish tank!”

“In the circus,” Dick snapped back. They passed through a hall full of glass figurines and dangling chandeliers. “I saw hundreds of people a day.”

“Yeah, well, I know people, too,” Jason said. “And people cheat, and steal, and if they have to hurt you to get what they want, they _will._ ”

“ _You_ wouldn’t.”

Jason froze. Dick was still holding his wrist, smiling back at him so light and easy that it was like he was looking at an old friend, someone he’d known all his life. 

“You’re wrong,” Jason said.

“No.” Dick’s voice was firm. “I’m pretty sure I’m right. You’re a good person, Jason Todd.”

“You don’t know _anything,_ ” Jason said, but Dick only kept smiling, and tugged on his hand, leading him into the biggest, brightest kitchen Jason had ever seen. 

Alfred was already at the large, steel-doored fridge, which was nestled between polished counters and cabinets inlaid with silver roses. Dick’s wet feet slipped on the tile, and he and Jason went skidding and stumbling into a high counter, where cushy stools were lined up in a neat row. They looked like they’d never been used, and it struck Jason as kind of sad. Places like this were meant to be lived-in, not preserved like a toy-store dollhouse.

Dick jumped up onto one of the stools and kicked his legs in the air. “Sorry if we woke you up, Mr. Pennyworth,” he said. Jason glared at him and climbed into the next stool over. 

“I’m used to late evenings,” Alfred said. “How do you two feel about tuna sandwiches?”

“Yes, thanks,” Dick said, and Jason made a face. Alfred smiled at him again, and that strange ache started up in his chest, making his throat go tight and his eyes sting. Jason ducked down to whisper in Dick’s ear.

“Watch his hands,” he said. “If he goes for the rat poison, we’re outta here.”

“Rat poison is an inefficient method of murder,” Alfred said, and Jason nearly fell off his stool. “But points for effort, No One.”

“How’d you know? You kill a lot of people, huh?” Jason asked. Dick kicked him. Alfred pulled down a loaf of bread and a long knife. 

“I didn’t exactly keep count,” he said, and both boys went pale. “Twenty years in the Security Service of Her Majesty’s Government, before I carried on the family business.”

“Really?” Jason said, interested despite himself. “What’d you do? Is it like the _secret_ service, or…”

Alfred placed two plates on the counter: One tuna sandwich, one ham. “Have you heard of James Bond?” he asked. Jason nodded. “Let’s just say that when I tell you that the movies were _highly_ inaccurate by all accounts, I know what I’m talking about.”

“You’re kidding,” Jason said. Dick was already decimating his sandwich—Jason picked at his. “Seriously, you’re kidding.”

“ _I_ have no reason to lie, No One.”

“It’s Jason Todd.” Jason took a bite of the sandwich. Of _course_ it was amazing. They probably had gold-dusted bread or something. 

Dick beamed at him, and Jason looked away. He ate in silence after that, watching Dick and Alfred chatter away like best friends, and tried not to feel a little resentful. Dick _was_ good with people after all, and even half-dressed and dripping foul water all over the floor, he looked more at home in this beautiful, movie-star kitchen than Jason was in an apartment that didn’t even have heat or central air. He wondered if this was something that all people like Dick had, and how many there were out there, swimming around in the depths of the ocean. Maybe, if Dick wasn’t raised in the circus, he could’ve been born down there, in the dark waters where mermaids built castles out of sea glass and coral. 

“And I can do three flips out of the water, no problem,” Dick was saying, when Jason finally came back to himself. Alfred was washing up in the sink right in front of them, but Jason couldn’t read anything in his smiling face. 

“That’s impressive,” he said. “I’m sure your costume impedes your movement considerably.”

“I don’t know what impedes means,” Dick said, “but it isn’t a costume.” Jason flapped his hand at him under the counter, but Dick carried on, pointedly looking away. “Do you wanna see?”

He screwed up his face, bending over the counter. Jason saw black scales start to pop out on the skin of his hip and back, and the weird black flaps he’d seen in the tank slid out of slits in Dick’s neck, hanging limp in the air. When Dick looked up, Alfred was standing very still, hands hovering over the running tap. 

“Kind of hard to breathe like this,” Dick admitted, and the flaps receded, folding back into his neck. “I’d change completely, but I don’t wanna ruin Jason’s pants.”

Jason waited for Alfred to scream. For him to run to the door, or grab a phone, or worse, the long, sharp knife he’d used for the bread. Instead, Alfred simply turned off the tap and wiped his hands on a towel.

“Remarkable,” he said. "Now, would the two of you like some leftover crumb cake?"

 

\---

 

Bruce Wayne climbed the stairs leading up to the basement of Wayne Manor in silence. Alfred hadn’t been in the cave to greet him that morning, which wasn’t altogether unwelcome—Bruce was always trying to convince him not to wait up, not with his erratic schedule—but it meant that he had to fish around in his spare clothes for something to change into, and with Alfred probably in bed, he had a narrow window of time to himself. He didn’t have to go straight to the kitchen or the first aid cabinet to avoid Alfred’s disappointed stare, so he locked the grandfather clock door behind him, crept across the hall, and slowly opened the door to his study.

And stared, fingers clenched on the handle of the door.

He closed the door again, lifting the handle so it wouldn’t make a sound, and turned to find Alfred in the adjoining sitting room, flipping through a large book labeled “Myths and Legends of the Atlantic.” 

“Alfred,” Bruce said. “Can you tell me why there are two boys sleeping in the study?”

“They fell asleep reading, Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “I didn’t have the heart to move them.”

“But Alfred. Why are they _here?_ ”

“That,” Alfred said, turning the page, “is a question you may have to answer for yourself.”


End file.
